Wednesday, March 23, 2016

WIP Wednesday: Back in the USA

On Monday, we traveled back to the US from Cologne, Germany - a long trip which involved a cab ride to the airport, an hourlong flight to Berlin, a somewhat confusing transfer to a huge Airbus which we were taken to via bus from the boarding gate, and the 9 hour transatlantic flight back home. Going through customs, changing our Euros back to dollars, and getting our luggage was a cake walk in comparison. And then there was the 20 minute ride home via the CTA Blue line, complete with a passenger having a very loud and angry phone conversation in our train car - ah, it's good to be home! Doorstep to doorstep, I think we were in transit some 18 hours. Pretty exhausting but totally worth it because Germany was awesome. I can't wait to share more posts with you about it, but for now, I just want to get back to "normal" and share my current WIPS.

First off are the projects I started before the trip - the Boson Cowl in Ancient Arts Merino/Silk Fingering:

I was really worried that my knitting needles would be confiscated on the trip home to the point that I packed both of these projects and took some yarn and a crochet hook with the express purpose of beginning a crochet project on the return flight home. I'm not sure why I packed extra yarn when I was at a place where there was all the yarn and it was inevitable that some would come home with me, but for some reason I did, and it ended up not being used because I couldn't resist winding off one of the skeins of ArtYarns Merino Cloud I got at the H+H show. On Monday morning at the Cologne Airport (AKA Sunday night CST), I had a ball of yarn and a crochet hook:

By the time I was ready to go to bed on Monday night (at 7pm, thank you, jet lag!), here's what I had completed of my second Calm Cowl:

On Friday, I'll be sharing my stash enhancement from the trip, but for now, here are some amazing little samples of some yarns that are made in Southern Germany which were gifted to me by my new friend Patrija:

I'm excited to play around with these little skeins, and I'm pretty sure I will be ordering a full skein or two in the very near future!